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If Toronto District School board isn’t working, then change it: Editorial

Bullying, harassment, sexually inappropriate comments and staff interference are all part of a day’s work for Toronto District School Board trustees.

Police officers were hired by TDSB chair Chris Bolton to curb the bad behaviour of trustees at a school board meeting on March 6, 2014. (Keith Beaty / Toronto Star)

Mon., March 17, 2014

If it’s true, in life, that we never leave the proverbial sandbox, then it’s too bad that only some are emotionally evolved enough to play a decent game.

Others, such as those backbiting trustees on the Toronto District School Board — you know who you are — clearly have no internal mechanism to control the chaos created in pursuit of individual agendas.

With a drive for power and political allegiances (which will be torn asunder in due course), the trustees’ infighting, name-calling and accusation-tossing gets in the way of their sole purpose — overseeing education for Toronto’s children.

As the Star’s Louise Brown and Kristin Rushowy report, other school boards beset with bad behaviour have witnessed improvements with, for example, fewer trustees and better defined job mandates that would stop the constant interference in staff decisions.

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Two options are possible. Premier Kathleen Wynne, a former (well-mannered) Toronto trustee, could take a dramatic step and amend the Education Act to reduce the number of trustees on the board. Or, the trustees could take the simpler route and voluntarily reduce their numbers.

With 22 elected trustees, Toronto has almost twice as many representatives as any other school board, including the Toronto Catholic School Board, which has 12 elected members. According to business experts like Jim Fisher, from the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, the public board is too big to function professionally. As Fisher noted, “Any board the size of the TDSB will be useless and dysfunctional.”

While trustee selflessness likely won’t carry a vote, it’s possible they could write governance policies that would delineate roles and responsibilities between elected officials, the education director and senior administration. A good governance model would allow staff to work without hiding behind locked doors.

It’s increasingly obvious that change is needed. Indeed, an audit by Ernst and Young released last December found that trustees have created a “culture of fear” by threatening higher-paid staff, some of whom rely on elected officials for promotions.

Board chair Chris Bolton recently called police to watch over a board meeting after a letter signed by four senior staffers complained of trustee bullying. Education director Donna Quan helped write the letter after an outburst by trustee Howard Goodman. And there’s always trustee Sam Sotiropoulos, who emails and tweets his every rude rumination.

As well, a recent investigation by an outside law firm concluded that trustee Elizabeth Moyer harassed two senior staffers by hugging and inappropriately touching one and by making a sexually suggestive comment to another.

Executive superintendent Manon Gardner complained in February 2011, alleging that Moyer told her “I would so do you” at an official event and superintendent Jim Spyropoulos filed a complaint last year, saying Moyer pushed him to hire her daughters for a summer job and improperly touched him. Moyers says she was unfairly targeted after calling for an audit on program spending.

It’s an embarrassing saga and Toronto voters must accept their responsibility in it. By paying so little attention to the trustees they elect, citizens repeatedly vote in unlikely characters.

So this fall, when Torontonians go to the polls, they should take a hard look at their candidate’s record and if it’s found wanting, vote for a new trustee. Democracy is a great change agent.

In a school board that prides itself on anti-bullying policies, it’s time trustees are held accountable for their actions. If it takes outside intervention or a voter uprising, so be it. Sometimes in life, hard lessons are needed.

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